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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	city_n	great_a	people_n	1,556	5	4.4120	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A35553	The tears of the Indians being an historical and true account of the cruel massacres and slaughters of above twenty millions of innocent people, committed by the Spaniards in the islands of Hispaniola, Cuba, Jamaica, &c. : as also in the continent of Mexico, Peru, & other places of the West-Indies, to the total destruction of those countries / written in Spanish by Casaus, an eye-witness of those things ; and made English by J.P.; Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias. English	Casas, Bartolomé de las, 1474-1566.; Phillips, John, 1631-1706.	1656 (1656)	Wing C799; ESTC R19416	54,176	156

of above nine thousand Crowns the Spaniards not content with this tied him to a stake and stretching out his Legs put fire to them requiring a greater sum of Gold who not able to endure the torment sent home for three thousand more notwithstanding the Spaniards with a fresh rage began to torment him again but seeing that he was able to give them no more they kept him so long over the fire till his marrow dropt from the soles of his feet whereof he died These were the torments wherewith they murthered not only the common People but the Peers and Lords of those Nations Sometimes it would happen that a Band of Spaniards ranging abroad would light upon a mountain where the Indians were fled for protection from their cruelty where they immediately fell upon the Indians killing the Men and taking the Women and Virgins captive when a great company of the Indians pursued them with weapons for the recovery of their Wives and Children they resolving not to let go their prey when the Indians came near them immediately with the points of their swords ran the poor Women and Children through the bodies Upon which the wretched Indians beating their brests for grief would now and then burst forth in these words O perverse men O cruel Spaniards What will ye kill helplesse women There was the house of a Noble man distant from Panama above 15. miles he was by name called Paris and he was very wealthy in Gold to him the Spaniards came and by him they were entertained like Brothers he giving to the Captain as a Present fifteen thousand Crowns who by that perceiving that he must of necessity have a very great treasure feigned a departure but about the middle of the night returning again entred the City set it on fire sacrificing the poor people to the flames Hence they took away about fifty or sixty thousand Crowns The Noble man escaping gathered together what force he could and made after the Spaniards who were gone away with no lesse then a hundred and forty thousand Crowns of his own Treasure when he had overtaken them he fell upon them and having slain above fifty of the Spaniards he recovered his Gold again The rest saved themselves by flight But not long after the Spaniards returned with greater force upon the Noble man and having routed him made slaves of all his people Of the Province of Nicaraqua IN the year 1522. the foresaid Governour went to subdue the Province of Nicaraqua There is no man that can sufficiently expresse the fertility of this Island the temperateness of the air or the multitude of the people that did inhabit it There was a vast number of people in this Province for it contained divers cities above four mile in length and for plenty of fruits which was the cause that it was so extreamly well habited without compare This people because their Countrey was all plain and level had not the shelter of the Mountains neither could they be easily perswaded to leave it so pleasant was their habitation And therefore they endured far the greater misery and persecution and underwent a more unsufferable slavery being the lesse able to bear it by how much they were of a milde and gentle nature This Tyrant vex'd and tormented these poor creatures with so many continual injuries slaughters captivities and cruelties that no tongue is able to expresse them Into this territory he sent above fifty horse who totally extirpated the people of this Province by the Sword sparing no age nor sex not for any wrong they did them but sometimes it came not so speedily when they called as they expected or if they brought not such quantities of corn as they imposed or if they did not bring a sufficient quantity of Indians to their service for the Countrey being in a plain there was no avoiding the fury of the Horsemen He commanded these Spaniards to go pillage and depopulate other Countreys permitting to these Robbers and Hangmen to bring away and enslave what number of these poor people they pleased whom they laded with chains that weighed above sixty or fifty pound that they might not have the opportunity of escaping so that it seldome hapned that above four in four thousand returned home and if either through the weight of their chains or for hunger or thirst they did chance to faint by the way because they would not hinder their journey they cut off their heads immediately throwing the head in one place and the body in another And the poor captive Indians when they saw the Spaniards preparing for such journeys at their departure would weep and fall into these kinde of sad expressions These are the journeys that we have often gone to serve the Christians and then we could return home again to visit our Wives and Children but now all hope is cut off from us and we must never see them more It happened also by reason that it came into the Governors minde to change the Indians from one Master to another pretending to take away force from some that he saw began to envie him that there was no seed time nor harvest for a whole year now rather then the Spaniards would want they took it from the Indians by which means there perished no lesse then thirty thousand people which caused one woman for hunger to eat her own childe And because these Cities and other places were such pleasant abodes therefore the Spaniards took up their habitations in these places dividing the possessions among themselves and as for the Indians both old and young they lived in the houses of the Spaniards drudging day night in a perpetual captivity who spared not the smallest children but impos'd on them burdens as much as they were able to bear and sometimes more by this means allowing them neither houses nor any thing else proper to themselves they destroyed them daily and do daily destroy them so that they exceeded the cruelties which they had committed in Hispaniola They hastned also the death of many of these poor people by forcing them to carry timber and planks for shipping to the port that was distant about thirty miles from this place compelling them also to fetch honey and wax from the Mountains where they were many times devoured by the Tygres Neither were they ashamed to lade and burthen Women with childe as if they had been only beasts for carriage But there was no greater plague that depopulated this Countrey then a liberty granted by the Governour to the Spaniards for the requiring of slaves and captives from the Nobles and potent men of the Kingdome who as often as the Spaniards obtained leave to demand them which was every four or five moneths and sometimes oftner gave them constantly fifty servants whom the Spaniards still threatned that if they would not be obedient they would either burn them alive or throw them to the dogs Now because the Indians have but few servants for it

hath destroy'd an infinite number of people for he among all those who have done most mischeife in ruining both Provinces and Kingdoms is famous for his Savage fury wherefore I am apt to believe that God hath put the same end to his life as to the others Three or four years after these things happened which I have related the other Tyrant that went along with him who there ended his dayes departed out of that Country whose cruelties and rapines while the chiefe Captaine liv'd and after his death were so many as we since understood that what we said before may still stand for an Axiom that the further they went the more exorbitant was their fury and iniquity But because it is so irksome to me to rehearse these Execrable and bloody acts not of men but of beasts I will no longer dwell upon them but go to those things which followed after They found a numerous people wise and well moralliz'd over whom they exercis'd their wonted tyrannies seeking to strike an awe and dread into them with the anguish and the burdens wherewith they oppressed them And if they fainted by the way they would not take the pains to open the fetters but came to the fainting person and cut off his head or his hands and so left them Once entring into a certaine Village they were with great joy and exultation received by the Spaniards who gave them provision till they were satisfied allowing them also six hundred Indians to carry their burdens and to look to their horses But the Spaniards being departed a certain Captain of Kin to the chiefe Tyrant returned to spoile them that mistrusted nothing who there slew the King of the Province with his Lance and committed many other cruelties In another Village whose Inhabitants seem'd to be more vigilant by reason of the horrid iniquities which as they heard the Spaniards were wont to commit they put all to the sword young and old little and great Lord and subject sparing none that came in their way The chief Tyrant with a nose and lips down to his beard having call'd together a great number of Indians reported to have been about two hundred caused them all to have their members lopt off leaving them in this sad and painful condition the blood streaming forth to be witness●s of the mercy of these persons baptiz'd in the Catholike Faith Now let us judge of the love which such kinde of men beare toward Christianity or after what manner they beleeve in God whom they boast to be good and just and whose Law is without blemish Most pernicious have been the evils committed by these wicked men the sons of perdition At length this wretched Captaine dyed without any repentance neither can we doubt but that he now lies fetter'd in the shades of Hell unlesse God of his infinite mercy and goodnesse not according to his deserts have taken compassion on him Of the River of Plate or the Silver River ABout the yeares one thousand five hundred and two or three some four or five Captaines undertook a journey to the River of Plate which containes many Provinces and Countries which flourish with people very rational and of handsome dispositions In general we can say that they did there commit many horrid mischiefes and execrable murders But being at a very great distance from those Indians of whom we have talked more at large we can relate nothing singular or particular onely we doe not question but they do employ themselves in the same works of darknesse as hath been hitherto practised in divers other places for they are Spaniards still and many of them the very same who were present at the other Massacres and having the same intention to become rich and potent which they cannot obtaine but by the same courses as they formerly took following the bloody footsteps of those who have already destroyed and slain so many Indians After I had written what I have above mentioned it hath been related to me for certaine that they have depopulated and laid waste many Provinces and Kingdoms in those Regions rendring themselves so much the more exquisite and devilish in their oppressions slaughters and massacres of those people by how much they are at a farther and more convenient distance from Spaine and laying aside all thoughts of Justice which indeed was never practis'd in those Regions of America as doth sufficiently appeare by what we have above writtrn Among all the Enormities which shall follow after this one was read in the Councel A certain Gouernour had given in charge to his souldiers that into whatever Village they came that should deny them provision that they should there put all the Inhabitants to the sword Upon which Warrant the souldiers went and because the Indians would not submit to them as to enemies fearing rather to come into their sight then that their Liberality or Store would be defective they immediatly put to the sword above 5000. of them A certain number of men also living in peace offer'd their service to them they afterwards were by chance summon'd by the Governour and because they came not so suddenly as his fury expected he thereupon commanded that they should be delivered to those Indians that were their enemies With tears and outcries they beseeched him that he would rather permit them to die by their hands then deliver them up to the mercy of their foes and when they would not come out of the houses where they were they were all torne lim-meale crying out and saying We come in peace to serve you and you now kill us may our blood sprinkled upon these walls be a testimony of our unjust death and of your cruelty Certainly this was a deed not only to be bemoaned but also to be bewaild and pity'd Of the great Kingdomes and large Provinces of Peru. IN the yeare 1531. a great Helluo and devourer of men went into the Kingdoms of Peru upon the same pretences and with the same intention as the rest and being one of those who had been present at the murders and slaughters committed in other places in the year 1510. therefore he proceeded with a greater hardnesse of heart in his outrages and robberies and being a man of no faith or truth he laid waste Cities and Villages slaying all the Inhabitants and was the cause of all those mischiefes that followed afterward in those Kingdomes to undertake the Narration of which and to represent them all to the Reader is a thing impossible until they shall perfectly and clearly appear at the day of judgement before all men And for my selfe I doe confesse should I goe about to describe the deformity the quality and circumstances of their actions it would be a task too difficult for me At his first enterance he wasted certain Villages and plundred the Country of a great quantity of Gold And one time coming into an Island adjoyning to these Regions which was known by the name of Pagna being a fertile

this King was not meanly vertuous by nature peaceful and much devoted to the King of Castile This King commanded his subjects that they should present to the Spaniards a bell full of Gold which when they were not able to do by reason that the people had but little skill how to dig out the Gold he thereupon commanded them to present the Spaniards with as much as they could fill Here a Cacicus or Governour offer'd himself to the service of the King of Castile upon condition that he would take care that all the Countrey from Isabella to St. Domingo being five hundred miles in length might be till'd which promises I am very confident he would cheerfully have performed and then might the King of Castile have had a revenue of above Three millions of Castilian Crowns and there had been still remaining in the Island above fifty Cities as large all of them as Sevill But what was the recompence which they afforded to this milde and bountiful Prince they suffered one of the Spanish Captains unworthy of the name of a Christian to vitiate his Wife He might have raised an army and endevoured a revenge but he rather chose to leave his Kingdome and his dignity and to live a banished person in the Province of Coquaios where a potent vassal and subject of his inhabited But the Spaniards hearing of his flght resolved not to let him lurk anywhere but immediately making war upon him that had received them so liberally they never rested till they had wasted all the Kingdome to finde him out at length he fell into their hands and no sooner had they taken him but they fettered him immediately putting him into a ship that was bound for Spain but the ship was wrackt by the way many Spaniards perishing and a great treasure of Gold being lost God so taking revenge upon their enormities Another Kingdome was called Marien where there is a port at one end of the plain that looks toward the North being larger and more fertile then the Kingdome of Portugal and which very well deserves to be better peopled for it abounds with Mountains wherein are great store of Gold Mines The name of the King that there ruled was Guacanagari under whom there were many other potent Lords some of whom I knew To this place came the old sea Captain that first discovered America who was received with so much courtesie and friendship by Guacanagari who gave him and his associates all the help and assistance that might be for his ship was there sunk that upon his return into Spain he would often affirm that his own parents in his own Countrey were never so friendly to him This King flying from the cruelty and enormous murders of the Spaniards being depriv'd of his Kingdome died poorly in the mountains The rest of his Nobles ended their lives in that servitude and slavery which shall be hereafter related The third Kingdome was Maquana a Countrey very temperate and fertile where the best Sugar in that Island is made In this Countrey at that time Canabao did reign who for power dignity gravity and the ceremonies which were used towards him far exceeded the rest This King suspecting nothing lesse was by the craft and subtlety of the Spaniards taken in his own house whom when they had taken they put a shipboard to send him to Castile but there being six ships in the Port ready to set sayle the sea began to swell so high and to be so unruly that all the six ships with the Spaniards in them together with King Canabao who was laden with chains all perished in the waves The great God shewing the Judgements of his wrath upon these unjust and wicked wretches as he had done upon the others This King had three or four brothers stout and valiant men who being offended at the Captivity of their Lord and King hearing of the devastations and rapines daily committed by the Spaniards in these Countries and understanding that their brother was dead resolved to take armes for the reliefe of their Countrey but the Spaniards meeting them with a certain number of horse which are a very great terror to the Indians made such a slaughter among them that they depopulated the greatest part of this Countrey The Fourth Kingdome was called Xaraqua being in the centre and middle of the whole Island for eloquence of language as also for good government and gentile customes it excels all the rest there was in it a great company of Lords and noble men and for the people themselves they were the most comely in the whole Island The King of this Countrey was called Behechio who had a sister who was called Anacaona Both the Brother and the Sister were very bountifull to the Spaniards for they had freed them from the dangers of imminent death shewing great kindnesses to the Kings of Castile Behechio being dead the Kingdome was solely govern'd by his Sister Now it happened one day that the Governour of the Island with sixty Horse and three hundred Foot though the Horsemen were sufficient not only to wast the Island but also the whole Continent cal'd to him about three hundred of the Peers and Lords of the Nation the greatest part whereof who were the more powerful having by craft got them together in a straw Cottage he cause to be burnt alive together with the house the rest with an infinite sight of people he caused to be put to death by the Souldiers who murdred the poor people like dogs with their Swords and Launces As for Anacaona the Queen that he might seem to be more courteous to her he caused her to hang her self And if it happened that any who were either moved with compassion or covetousnesse thinking to make lacqueys or servants of the Children had set them behinde their horses another would come behinde them and either run them through or cut off their legs if they hung down upon the horse sides And when certain of the Indians who escaped this furious massacre fled into an Island distant from them about some eight miles they were by the Governour condemned to perpetual servitude The wars being now at an end and the inhabitants all killed up the women and children being only reserved they divided them among themselves giving to one thirty to another forty to one a hundred to another two hundred and those that had most received them on this condition that they should instruct them in the Catholick Faith though commonly their Masters were a company of stupid ignorant and covetous fellowes and defiled with all manner of vices But the main care was to send the men to work in the Gold Mines which is an intolerable labour and to send the women to manure and till the ground an exercise fit only for the stoutest men These they fed with nothing but roots and hearbs so that the milk of women with childe being dried up by that reason the poor little infants died And the men being